Posted on 07/25/2005 1:42:50 PM PDT by gopwinsin04
The Abu Hafs Brigades who claimed responsibilty for the two London bombing attacks published a fresh warning Monday, July 25 on their internet web site.
'After London, it is now Rome's turn.' An earlier warning by the same group gave Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK and Italy until August 15 to pull their soliders out of Iraq.
The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was warned that by failing to withdraw Italian coalition troops from Iraq, he would 'by his own hand turn Rome into a graveyard.'
The statement threatens the Italian capital with harsher and more painful strikes than the London attacks.
'As long as a single Italian soldier remains in Italy, you the prime minister can look forward to nothing but 'more and more blood.'
(Excerpt) Read more at debka.com ...
In the meantime, enlightenment occurs:
AsiaNews has learnt that the unprecedented personal attack on Pope Benedict XVI launched by Israel's Foreign Ministry on Monday 25 July was meant as a smokescreen for the Ministry's decision to abandon the negotiations with the Holy See planned for the same day.
These negotiations, explicitly mandated by Israel's 1993 Fundamental Agreement with the Holy See - the international treaty that is the "magna charta" of all relations between the Jewish State and the Catholic Church - have the purpose of achieving a new treaty to confirm the Church's centuries' old tax exemptions and property rights, which have been eroded by the State since its establishment.
The negotiations began officially on 11 March 1999. However, in recent years Israel has been reluctant even to meet the Holy See to negotiate, and on 28 August 2003, the Israeli delegation abandoned the negotiations altogether, and only came back to the table a year later in response to pressure from the Church and the Government of the United States.
After agreeing to very few meetings in 2005, Israel agreed to meet on 19 July, only to cancel the meeting at the last moment, and have it transferred to 25 July.
Apparently Israeli officials feared the consequences of cancelling this meeting too at the very last moment, so they contrived to find fault with the papal Angelus address to cover up their non-compliance with their treaty obligation to negotiate with the Holy See.
http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=3789
I am still confused by your assertion that I claimed the Pope called the Iraq war unjust. Where in my post did you see the word unjust. I just stated the Pope and my goofy Priest were opposed to the war.
Someone needs a time out!
As Henry Kissinger once noted about Richard Nixon,"Sometimes paranoids truly do have enemies."
And sometimes, it seems, its possible the Israeli government does have a 'hidden agenda.'
I would suggest you check out the article, " Israel's Attack on the Pope Is a Smokescreen for Abandoning Talks with the Holy See" over on the Religion forum.
The Israeli foreign minister is a liar.
"AsiaNews has learnt..."
How exactly have they "learnt" that. They are making an inference, a conclusion. And a biased one.
"Apparently Israeli officials feared the consequences of cancelling this meeting too at the very last moment, so they contrived to find fault with the papal Angelus address to cover up their non-compliance with their treaty obligation to negotiate with the Holy See."
The only thing "apparent" in this article is the blatant attempt to smear Israel's motives. It appears just as likely to me that Israel objected to the Pope's omission of Israeli terror and with a new Pope sought to protest the treatment sooner rather than later.
Considering that moral equivalency between Palestinian terror and Israeli response to terror is rampant around the world, that much of the world sees terror against Israelis as somehow different than other terror, I see that history as a reasonable explanation to Israeli objections early on in this new relationship.
That article is meaningless.
To dissemble radical islam is going to require radical measures of Christianity, and this time around I at least can know nobody down the road will question why it was done.
Threatening the Vatican, for God's sake. Idiots.
Er, you mean the same Catholics who follow the Pope? The same Pope who opposes war with Iraq? Contraception? Etc?
Those Catholics?
Laughable. The Catholics are not warriors.
One of the nice things about Catholicism is that we're not beholden to a geographical spot on the globe. As long as some priest, somewhere in the world, in some dank cellar in China or somewhere in the nether reaches of Iceland is celebrating Mass, the Catholic Church is open for business.
So, yeah, the Vatican holds a lot of symbolic value, but it's not like the necessity of Jews and Muslims to call Jerusalem their capital...It's the ultimate portable Church.
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